Every day leading up to Wednesday, I’d been planning. Preparing.Practicing.
And, fine, a little Googling:How to confess to your best friend that you have feelings for them.
Sunday had been a day dedicated to researching Google, Reddit, and YouTube, searching for answers to the slightly embarrassing question. I’d erased my search history after that, horrified at the idea of Theo seeing it when he took my phone to play his game.
And Monday had been a day dedicated to avoiding the twins like the plague, because with all the confession-coded info stuffed into my brain, there was no way I could even text them without being super awkward.
So I’d texted them both an excuse I thought was semi-believable.
theo’s been under the weather these past few days. Some kind of summer flu. I’ll text you when he’s better to keep from spreading germs.
Nellie
Poor thing!! Sending hugs. Let me know if you need anything!
Jamie
I can come and keep you company.
I’d wanted to kick my feet over the text, to send backyes, please, but I kept myself in check.
projectile vomit, Jamie. You don’t want it. But I’ll check in when he feels better.
I really needed one more day to perfect my drawing. So it all came down to today—Wednesday. When Mom came home from work in thirty minutes, I’d head out and show up at Alderton-Du Ponte to wait for Jamie to finish book club. I’d ask if we could talk. Maybe we could go for a walk through the rosebushes. I’d hold his hand, and without anyone around, I’d hand him the piece of paper he’d given me, only this time, there’d be a drawing on it.
I want this to be real, I’d tell him, with my heart in my throat and smaller hearts in my eyes.I want us to be real.
And then I’d kiss him.
Probably. If my tiptoes could bring me tall enough.
But just the thought—sitting at the kitchen table—had me blushing like a maniac.
“Are you okay?”
I jerked my head up to find Junie standingat the edge of the table, hands clutching the spindles of one of the chairs. “Yeah. Why?”
“You look like you’re choking.”
I pressed the backs of my fingers to my cheeks, swallowing hard. “Just… warm.”
Penn and Ivy were playing an adventure game on the TV, and Penn spent most of the time explaining the rules to Ivy. Theo was beside Penn on the couch, wiggling his fingers just out of view, watching.
“Whatcha drawing?” Junie asked, angling her head to see the paper clearer. “Is that… Jamie?”
I traced my fingertip across the sheet of paper. It was separate from my notebook, but I was so accustomed to sketching on the thick paper that I used it as a base. My heart did a little flip that Junie could so easily recognize him, even when I wasn’t quite finished with the shading.
Even though he’d asked for gore, I hadn’t been able to get the image of Jamie in the Alderton-Du Ponte library out of my head. The way the sunlight had threaded in, through his hair, and the angle of his neck as he peered at his book. The way his glasses slipped down his nose, just as they always did before I pushed them back up.
I’m drawing Jamie. Willingly. Enthusiastically. I wanted to see if it was different from drawing Kit, and it totally was. It felt more… intimate. Dragging the tip of my pencil along his lips had my stomach flipping. “Yeah.”
Junie rested her chin on the back of the dining room chair, blinking dreamily at my sketchbook. “Is he coming over today? You should invite him. He should’ve come over with Nellie last week.”
The big sister in me wanted to poke fun at her for her little crush, but I held back. “I’m going to see him at Alderton-Du Ponte.”
“Can I come?”
“Sorry.” I turned back to my paper. “No kids allowed.”
